What Does the Data Say? What NAPLAN Results Tell Us About High-Impact Teaching
NAPLAN results season is here again, and school leaders around the country are sitting down with spreadsheets, comparing this year’s numbers to last, and asking the same question: what actually moved the needle? It’s a genuinely exciting time — because for schools that have invested in consistent, evidence-based instructional practice, the data is starting to tell a clear story.
We work with hundreds of schools across Australia, and every year we see the same pattern: where teachers commit to high-impact instructional strategies — and where that practice is consistent across a whole staff, not just a few enthusiastic classrooms — NAPLAN growth follows. Here’s what the data from our own network shows.
The pattern across our network
Since 2019, Teach Well has worked with more than 8,800 teachers and leaders across 900+ schools, reaching over 325,000 students. In 2025 alone, that was 2,500+ participants from 430+ schools. The headline number worth sitting with: 78% of teachers who completed the Masterclass Series in High-Impact Instruction reported improved academic progress for their students, with gains showing up across subjects and year levels — including for students who started below expected benchmarks.
That’s a self-reported figure from teachers. The NAPLAN data from individual schools backs it up.
Oakwood Primary School: five green lights in Year 3
Oakwood Primary School in WA is a K–6 government school of over 900 students, with 16% of students from language backgrounds other than English. After three years of sustained commitment to high-impact instruction — six cohorts through the Masterclass Series across K–2 and Year 3–10 teams — the school’s 2024 NAPLAN results moved decisively.
Year 3 achieved five green lights, meaning every learning area exceeded one standard deviation above the expected result — an exceptional outcome for both progress and achievement. Year 5 Reading also turned green, up from yellow in 2023. Numeracy told a similarly clear story: Year 3 scores climbed from 371 in 2021 to 431 in 2024, and Year 5 from 461 to 488, with the school outperforming Like Schools in both year levels for the first time. As the school’s own data notes, “a clear improvement each year in the NAPLAN scores for Numeracy for both Year 3 and Year 5 between 2021 and 2024” tracked directly alongside a consistent focus on daily reviews and data-informed teaching.
Jolimont Primary School: named among WA’s highest achievers
Jolimont Primary — a culturally diverse school of around 410 students from Kindergarten to Year 6 — was named one of only two WA primary schools among the state’s 30 “high-achievement” schools in this year’s NAPLAN round, as reported by The West Australian. 69% of their Year 5 students made above-average progress in numeracy compared with students of similar starting scores and backgrounds — the highest of any school on the list — and 62% made above-average progress in reading.
Principal Barbara Iffla put it simply: “The biggest impact has been having our whole school staff trained by Teach Well, ensuring common practice and language throughout the school, supporting student learning and teacher impact.” Twenty of Jolimont’s teachers have now completed the Masterclass Series, with more starting in 2026.
Catholic Regional College, St Albans: a whole-school shift in one year
CRC St Albans, a Y7–10 school in the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne, set out in 2024 to improve literacy and numeracy through a clearer instructional plan and stronger coaching. Staff completed the Masterclass Series in 2025, alongside a whole-school workshop to build shared language and consistent practice.
The results by the end of that single year: in Maths, the proportion of Year 7 students in the highest achievement band rose from 24% to 37%. In Reading, Year 9 students in the 140–149 achievement band jumped from 6.6% to 27%. Two data points, one clear signal — when a whole staff moves together on instructional practice, growth compounds quickly.
What do these schools have in common?
None of these results came from a single initiative or a one-off professional learning day. Across Oakwood, Jolimont and CRC St Albans, the common thread is consistency: daily review, full participation strategies, explicit teaching, and — critically — a shared instructional language used across every classroom in the school, not just isolated pockets of good practice.
That’s the mechanism worth paying attention to as results land this NAPLAN season. The data doesn’t just tell us that high-impact teaching works. It tells us it works at scale, when it’s implemented consistently and sustained over time.
Curious what this could look like in your school? 👇🏼